26 Mar 14 | India, News and features
Step back to 23 February. In Delhi, the caretaker of Siddharth Varadarajan’s house was roughed up by goons who left a chilling threat. “Ask your employer to hold his tongue on television,” they thundered. Professor Nandini Sundar, Varadarajan’s wife, wasn’t spared either. A threat was left for her, because she had taken a state government to court for its use of militia against its own citizens.
“Where we needed investigations, we made announcements,” lamented veteran Indian journalist P. Sainath. His stinging rebuke was against the mainstream media’s deafening silence in the face of one of the worst agrarian crisis India had faced, back in 2008. In light of this code of silence, the reasons for the incident of 23 February become clear. Compare the Indian media’s coverage of that incident with the blitzkrieg of apoplexy which greeted Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal’s threat to jail journalists whom he considered to be corrupt (sold out to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) – against whom he has launched an all-out war), and things fall into perspective. In case of the former, there were the usual noises and clichéd responses– condemning growing intolerance, bemoaning the rapidly shrinking space of freedom of expression, so on and so forth. The latter — Kejriwal’s threat — was greeted with a vehemence and unanimity rarely seen in the Indian media.
Both Varadarajan, former editor of The Hindu, one of India’s most respected newspapers, and Professor Sundar, sociologist, academician and civil liberties activist, have earned a considerable degree of notoriety and opprobrium, which only seem to be increasing of late. The choicest invectives are reserved for them, especially for Varadarajan. Anti-national, traitors, and shameless espousers of terrorism — the list goes on. The reason? They have been trenchant critics of the aforementioned “announcement”, as well as of proclamations of innocence by the government of Chhattisgarh state, and by the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate and his humongous band of acolytes.
Chhattisgarh, a state in central India, has been the hotbed of insurgency, the causes of which are too many and complex to be addressed here. However, the BJP-ruled government had a novel solution — raise a band of state-sponsored militia, arm them to the teeth, grant them carte blanche powers to kill, rape, maim, plunder, and unleash them on the insurgents. Sundar has been a vocal critic of such “atrocious” “counter-insurgency measures” and in 2011, acting upon her petition, India’s Supreme Court outlawed the government’s policy. The court did not mince words in its censure of a government killing its own citizens in cold blood. The government has not taken too kindly to such strictures — while continuing to subvert the court’s order, it has also accused Sundar of complicity with the insurgents.
Varadarajan stands accused of and vilified for more egregious lying. He has demonstrated the temerity to tirelessly challenge one of the most vociferous of “announcements” — that Narendra Modi has been granted a “clean chit”, meaning exoneration from a civil or criminal charge, over his role in the bloodcurdling pogrom against Muslims in Gujarat 2002. Modi’s piece de resistance of exculpatory evidence is the report of an investigation team which declared that he had no role to play in either instigating the riots, or as Chief Minister of Gujarat, directing the police and administration under his watch to go for the kill.
Varadarajan has, with staggering perseverance, been taking a sledgehammer to this impunity. Be it blowing holes in the official reason being touted, editing a collection of essays nailing the official lies, speaking about the manufacturing of “truth” and consent by a craven media, speaking up for a scrupulously researched book which exposes the investigation and “clean chit” as travesty, or adhering to his journalistic principles and refusing to kowtow to the “Modi wave” — he has left no stone unturned. And paid for it, too. In fact, one of the reasons for his resignation from as venerated a paper as The Hindu was his staunch refusal to act as a megaphone for Modi’s propaganda.
Dissent and accountability are anathema to Modi. Especially if they threaten to rip apart his assiduously crafted and forcefully propagated image of exemplary governance, and of course, his squeaky clean hands in so far as the 2002 pogrom was concerned. A 2003 documentary was banned by censors (led by a Gujarat BJP politician) because “it shows the government and police in a bad light”. Journalist Manoj Shinde had to pay with jail time on charges of sedition for mustering the audacity to criticise Modi’s handling of massive floods in 2006. And only three days ago, the police in Gujarat’s capital Ahmedabad ensured that a documentary challenging the “Modi-fied truth” did not get to be screened.
This article was published on 26 March 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
24 Mar 14 | Digital Freedom, India, News and features
For many years, the Indian public in particular, had very little interest in who controlled the internet and decisions taken at a structural level that shaped its future.
The press carried little tidbits about the World Summit on Information Society; a pair of United Nations-sponsored conferences about information, communication and, with an aim to bridge the so-called global digital divide separating rich countries from poor countries by spreading access to the internet in the developing world, the UN body, International Telecommunications Union (ITU); which coordinates the shared global use of the radio spectrum, promotes international cooperation in assigning satellite orbits, works to improve telecommunication infrastructure in the developing world, and assists in the development and coordination of worldwide technical standards, and Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which coordinates the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) functions, which are key technical services critical to the continued operations of the Internet’s underlying address book, the Domain Name System (DNS) and also UN Commission of Science and Technology Working Group on Enhanced Cooperation, where governments come together to discuss issues like internet governance.
What was commonly known followed a similar trajectory: America invented the internet, it is a global commons, and it works well.
Over the last few years, however, as the Indian experience with the internet has matured, questions of governance, both internally and externally have started making headlines. Allegations of mass surveillance have hogged all headlines. Another factor cannot be missed: the Indian digital economy is growing rapidly, and while internet governance is nowhere close to being an election issue in India, domestically, access, freedom of expression, cyber crime and cyber security are growing concerns. There also the reality that as India’s population gets increasingly connected, it will host one of the biggest online demographies in the world. Therefore, India’s views and actions in terms of how the internet should grow and be governed is crucial to the future of the internet itself.
In October 2011, the Indian government proposed that a UN Committee for Internet-Related Policies (CIRP) be formed, so that governments can debate and deliberate on vital issues such as intellectual property enforcement, privacy and data protection, online filtering and censorship and network neutrality. Those opposed to the idea have warned that the “open” nature of the internet will be threatened by governments who favor a controlled and censored form of the internet. Also the proposed structure of the UN-CIRP seemed to be the very anti-thesis of a dynamic internet; it involved setting up a 50 member committee that only met for two weeks in the year. Those opposed to this bureaucratic suggestion, instead, favour a multi-stakeholder transnational governance mechanism, which gives all stakeholders of the internet a place on the table; including governments, businesses and civil society members.
The last few months of 2013 were very active internationally, on questions of internet governance. Three big international events made headlines, and India’s role in them is especially telling. The first was the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Indonesia in November. This event brought together all members of civil society on a common platform to deliberate on the rules of global governance, but in effect did not have any binding powers. Given that it was held in the wake of the Snowden revelations of NSA surveillance, the conversations centered around the need to ensure better protection of all citizens in the online environment and to reach a proper balance between actions driven by national security and respect for freedom of expression, privacy and human rights. While in the 2012 IGF, India’s Minister for Communication Technology had been present, in 2013, was “extremely small” according to Dr Anja Kovaks who participated there. She added that, “many developing countries look up to India’s engagement with internet-governance forums to ensure that the concerns of the developing world are not ignored during policy-making.”
In December, 2013, the UN Commission of Science and Technology Working Group on Enhanced Cooperation released a statement which also carried India’s proposal that, “The UN General Assembly could embark on creation of a multilateral body for formulation of international Internet-related public policies. The proposed body should include all stakeholders and relevant inter-governmental and international organisations in advisory capacity within their respective roles as identified in Tunis agenda and WGIG report. Such body should also develop globally applicable principles on public policy issues associated with the coordination and management of critical Internet resources.” Earlier this year, a note written by India’s National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS), leaked to an Indian newspaper in March 2014, warns of the DNS system under US control, and goes on to say that “India’s position is aligned with Russia, Saudi Arabia and Iran who also want governments to collectively drive internet management worldwide…” It adds that, “trust in the internet has declined and India’s objective in the Geneva session was to ensure its concerns are accommodated in whatever international regime of Internet governance finally emerges.”
However, in the backdrop of continuing internet governance discussions, came the announcement by Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff that in the light of revelations of global mass surveillance by the US, Brazil was going to host an internet governance conference — NETmundial — in April 2014. This announcement was made after consulting the head of ICANN, Fadi Chehde. In contrast, the Indian reaction to these revelations seemed rather muted, perhaps because India too is building a mass surveillance regime within its national borders. It is also believed that Brazil asked India take a bigger role with them, however, Indian foreign ministry officials have stated off-the-record that details about the conference were not easy to come by from Brazil. Either way, the conference dates coincide with Indian general elections of 2014 and the formation of a new national government, and will most likely see a small Indian delegation.
A month before the Brazil conference comes the announcement by the United States government that the U.S. National Telecommunications and Information Administration will end its formal relationship with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers in late 2015, with ICANN developing a new global governance model. It has been made clear by the ICANN President and CEO Fadi Chehadé that the transition out of NTIA was “not a final decision to surrender control of the internet” or about announcing a new law or policy. “The [U.S.] government also set clear boundaries for that discussion, including a very clear statement that it will not release control of these functions to any government-led or inter-governmental organization solution.” Former CEO of ICANN Rod Beckstorm gave an interview in which he speculated that the US government made the announcement now “because they face the serious risk of losing even more at the upcoming NETmundial conference on internet governance in Brazil. This event could potentially lead to greater United Nations control over the internet and open the door to increased influence by countries opposed to a free and open internet.”
This, of course, is a hint that the US government would rather restructure ICANN and keep the multistakeholder approach towards internet governance open, rather than let some governments steer the course towards a government led body governing the internet.
In a reaction to the announcement, Member of Parliament and vocal critic of the Indian government’s position, Rajeev Chandrasekhar told Index that “India needs to think ahead, because its position on the governance of the internet and its inexplicable alliance with China, Saudi Arabia on this issue has been based on the so called US control of the net. First, the Ministry of External Affairs’s entrenched position of a UN body needs to be withdrawn forthwith. I have substantiated its problems at multiple levels. India has lost its leadership status to Brazil in the internet governance space, thanks to government’s position, and reflects complete failure of thought by Indian leadership.” Looking towards the future, Chandrasekhar added that, “the new government needs to hold national, open public consultation on the issue. Parliament needs to be involved. Governments want to regulate; industry invests, builds infrastructure and drives innovation; and civil society/academia protects civil ideals and users’ interest, including privacy, free speech and human rights. A free, open, safe, secure and truly global internet can only be managed through a multi-stakeholder mechanism with specific areas of intergovernmental cooperation, such as cyber terrorism, international jurisdiction.”
Other civil society voices, too, have called for the Indian government to rise to this new challenge. Security expert, Dr. Raja Mohan wrote in the Indian Express that, “Delhi has a long record of posturing at multilateral forums and shooting itself in the foot when it comes to national interest. Believe it or not, in the 1970s, India opposed, at the UN, the direct broadcast satellite technology in the name of protecting its territorial sovereignty. With an IT sector that is deeply integrated with the global economy and contributing nearly 8 per cent of India’s GDP as well as the world’s third-largest group of internet users, India does not have the luxury of quixotic pursuits. Delhi’s negotiating position must be rooted firmly in India’s economic interests. Issue-based coalitions — with countries, companies and civil society groups — are critical for ensuring the best possible outcomes.”
Given the Indian government’s taste for pushing unilateral mechanisms for governing the internet at an international level, and Indian civil society, which for the most part seems to vocally support a multistakeholder approach, the Indian elections might bring about a new opportunity for both sides to find clarity. Some argue that multistakeholder models give an equal seat to governments like the US, but also to their corporate giants such as Google, Facebook, AT&T, which might help them secure a majority over crucial issues and therefore an international unilateral model might be beneficial for smaller countries. Alternatively, a government-led model, as India suggests, pre-supposes a consultative mechanism within countries so that the will of the people can be reflected. One thing is clear, with its technology boom, population, and growing dependence on the internet for economic prosperity, governance and free expression, the country can no longer afford to not assume a leadership role in this area, while at the same time sticking to its core democratic principles. It needs to rise to its leadership potential and reflect the will of its people.
This article was published on 24 March 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
13 Mar 14 | India, News and features, Pakistan
Improbable as it may seem, but 67 Kashmiri university students were briefly charged with sedition for cheering for Pakistan, and celebrating its win over India, during an Asia Cup cricket match in early March.
Sections of the Indian Penal Code that they were charged under were the following:
Section 124a – “Whoever by words, either spoken or written, or by signs, or by visible representation, or otherwise, brings or attempts to bring into hatred or contempt, or excites or attempts to excite disaffection towards the Government established by law..”
Section 153 – “Whoever malignantly, or wantonly by doing anything which is illegal, gives provocation to any person intending or knowing it to be likely that such provocation will cause the offence of rioting to be committed shall..”
Section 427 – “Whoever commits mischief and thereby causes loss or damage to the amount of fifty rupees or upwards..”
The students were watching the match in Meerut, at the Swami Vivekanand Subharti University when the ruckus started. According to conflicting reports, the hooting of the Kashmiri students at Pakistan’s win caused those supporting India to chase them and throw stones at their rooms. The Kashmiri students protested the next day, but the university officials suspended them for three days as “resentment was growing in other hostels because of their behavior.” The police charged them under the Indian Penal Code. After a public outcry, the Uttar Pradesh police dropped the charges, however, there is a battle of words between the police and university officials as to who initiated the charges against the students.
The incident, once again, has exposed the fragile faultlines between Kashmir and India – and the perceived disloyalty of the Kashmiri Muslims to India. The controversy has brought about some harsh reactions, including a tweet by famous lyricist Javed Akhtar that said – “Why the suspension of those 67 Kashmiri students who cheered Pakistan is revoked. They should be rusticated and sent back to Kashmir.” Others, like Shivam Vij, took a more nuanced position, stating that, “not taking action against them would have escalated the violence at the university and in the city. The Indian students at the university were responding with the same sentiment that makes Kashmiri Muslims suspect their Hindu minority: the sentiment of nationalism. How acceptable would it be to a Pakistani if some in Pakistan openly and publicly cheered for the Indian cricket team in a match against Pakistan?”
Tidbits from Kashmir also help cement this view of the Muslims from the Kashmir Valley to the rest of India. Reports that firecrackers celebrated Pakistan’s win all night, and that a skirmish between Indian army personnel and local Kashmir youth celebrating the results of the match ended in a stabbing. There have also been defiant editorials from Pakistan countering the action against the students, declaring that, “it is not the win of Pakistan but the loss of India against any cricket playing nation that revives interest for cricket in Kashmir. India’s loss is a temporary relief from all the melancholy and grief that the people of Kashmir go through on a daily basis, inflicted by the Indian state and its military architecture.”
While this incident in question might have, on the surface, been about cricket and extremely ungentlemanly behavior, very quickly it seemed to have translated into politics as usual. A outcry about serious charges against university students – Kashmiris who had travelled far from home to obtain an Indian degree – was raised by many Indians in the media, by the Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, and international groups. Many of these students were in Meerut given under the PMSSS, or the Prime Minister’s Special Scholarship Scheme, meant to enhance job opportunities for Kashmiri youth, meant mainly for low-income families. This is part of a larger drive to assimilate Kashmiri youth into the mainstream economic and educational life of India.
Indian Express’s Shekhar Gupta lamented the controversy given cricket’s globalized nature where it is increasingly normal to cheer for favourite player from another country. Instead he feels that “India’s majority has a minority complex” and this is coming to the fore “when the BJP is surging ahead, and not because of any mandir, tension with Pakistan, or rash of terror attacks. And when, in fairness, you have to acknowledge that there isn’t even a vaguely communal appeal in its leader Narendra Modi’s campaign message. India has had a 13-year period of total peace, unprecedented in its independent history. There has been a steep decline in terror incidents. Even the Maoists seem to be shrinking slowly. And yet, our level of jingoism is as if we were approaching an imminent war, as if India were under siege, its borders getting violated with impunity, the enemy at the gates.” Many echo Gupta’s view, fearing that those who believe the BJP under Narendra Modi will form government after the elections in April 2014, might be quick to adopt the jingoistic Hindu nationalism the party was based on.
Adding a layer to this incident is an interesting point of view offered by journalist Prayaag Akbar who writes about India’s many Muslims who feel affinity towards Pakistani cricket team, but are rarely called out for it, unlike the Kashmiri Muslims. He writes – “that some Indian Muslims, not just Kashmiris, support Pakistan during cricket matches must be acknowledged. But categorisation is self-fulfilling, some will say, and sport excites tribalism. It does not immediately follow—and this seems to be the consideration at the crux of the issue—that they will support Pakistan in a war against India. Yet it does not immediately follow that they will not, either. No one on either side of the debate can assert their position with complete confidence. What we can say with certainty is there has been a failure of assimilation, that has in part been caused by a rarely acknowledged, yet generally accepted, narrowed definition of what it means to be Indian.”
Cricket, criticisms and cartoons cannot be simply deemed seditious by the Uttar Pradesh police because they are problematic. And, ironically, this is in the shadow of the largest democratic exercise in the world, the Indian elections, a month away.
This article was published on March 13, 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
05 Mar 14 | India, News and features, Politics and Society
In 1993 Nancy Adajania, a 21-year-old student, published an article titled Myth and Supermyth. In it she explored the way in which newly formed nations often fostered a sense of identity by converting their historical figures into national icons. Her article provoked angry protests across the state of Maharashtra, India’s financial hub, where she was charged and arrested for insulting the memory of Shivaji, a 17 century king revered in the state as a Hindu hero. Justice Saldanha considered Adajania’s bail application and said in his judgment: values from “the dark ages” must not be allowed to “turn the clock backwards” on freedom of expression.
And yet the clock has been turned back, and this became clear once again last month when Penguin India agreed to withdraw and destroy all copies of The Hindus, a monograph by the Sanskritist Wendy Doniger. The publishers pulped the book after a four-year legal battle with the Shiksha Bachao Andolan (Save Education Movement), a fundamentalist Hindu outfit that complained the book “insulted” their religion.
In a statement released after the out-of-court settlement Penguin condemned India’s criminal laws, which it said undermined free expression. In no legal system is freedom of speech an absolute, unqualified right. Liberal jurisdictions do, however, recognise that free expression is integral to a free society, and ensure that any qualifications to the right are limited. In India the right to free speech is enshrined in Article 19 of the Constitution, but it is immediately and extensively qualified by Article 19(2) which gives the state licence to impose “reasonable restrictions” – a broad power justifying curtailments based on vague notions such as “morality” and “decency”.
The state and private petitioners have equally exploited India’s penal code to harass, censor or silence individuals. Beyond religion and folk history, politicians and big business have used criminal proceedings to muzzle activists, social workers and political commentators. In 2012 Aseem Trivedi, a satirical cartoonist, was charged with sedition – a crime against the state – for publishing cartoons criticising official corruption. Arundhati Roy, the author and essayist, was similarly threatened with sedition charges for publicly speaking in favour of the Kashmiri right to self-determination. The silencing of personal opinion now also extends to social media. In 2012 a 21-year-old was arrested for hurting religious sentiments after she criticised the decision by authorities to shutdown Mumbai to mark the death of a controversial local politician.
As Faisal Devji, a historian at the University of Oxford, notes, the agents of censorship in India have changed. The colonial-era penal code served the repressive functions of the Raj, but the state has long since been replaced by hard-line extremist groups. For many this shift occurred in 1988 when Rajiv Gandhi, a former Prime Minister, bowed down to pressure from Muslim fundamentalists and banned imports of Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses.
In the 2014 World Press Freedom Index, Reporters without Borders ranked India 140 out of 180 countries. India’s denial of free speech in Kashmir and other insurgency-inflicted areas is well established. In its report Reporters with Borders go further, noting journalists are “abandoned by the judicial system” and subjected to “threats and physical violence”, forcing themselves to self-censor. Security forces, criminal groups, demonstrators and members of political organisations are all implicated, the report goes on, in the erosion of freedom of speech.
The state has consistently failed in its duty to safeguard the right to free speech, and increasingly stands back to allow extremists to trample on it. As well as opportunistic politicians the courts, as Ramachandra Guha a prominent Indian historian explains, are also to blame. Before M.F. Husain, India’s most celebrated painter, fled India in self-imposed exile, courts across the country entertained spurious cases filed against him from angry Hindus offended by the artist’s portrayal of Indian gods.
Last year Salman Rushdie described the deterioration of free expression in India as a “cultural emergency”. The extent of this emergency was made shockingly clear when Hoot, a media watchdog, published its annual Free Speech report. In 2013 alone eight journalists were killed, 99 counts of official censorship were recorded and India’s surveillance infrastructure grew to include the Central Monitoring System, National Intelligence Grid and ad hoc interceptions of electronic communications.
Free speech in India is under attack on two fronts: top-down state censorship has been matched by the bottom-up moral policing of ad hoc fundamentalist groups. As Pranab Bhanu Mehta, a leading commentator, warns, “If the state gives taking offence such aid and succour, offence will be easily taken.” Indeed, the clock is at risk of being turned back much further. Emboldened by its victory the Shiksha Bachao Andolan is now determined to see Doniger’s other works destroyed. As Dinanath Batra, the organisation’s octogenarian leader said during a recent interview, “Freedom of expression cannot trample our identity, culture, religion and tradition. We cannot allow anti-national writings.”
This article was published on March 5, 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
